The Knight and the Avenging Angel
by Pickwick12
Summary: All about Reese and Finch and their motivations. Non-slash. Contains other character perspectives as well.
1. Avenging Angel

John Reese had a secret.

Not the secret of his name or his birth or his past. Those things were easy enough to keep hidden.

This secret was different; it was the thing that had the potential to make him weak, but it was also what made him strong. Whenever he wished he could escape it, he recalled the men and women he had known who had managed to do so, and he knew he didn't want to be one of them.

Harold shared his secret, of course, though they never talked about it. It was the strongest thread binding the two of them together, so strong it never needed to be articulated.

The secret John Reese both cherished and hated was his love.

He loved them all, all the people behind the numbers. He loved the unfortunate girls with the male stalkers, the children whose parents' bad decisions put them in harm's way, the men without jobs. He even loved the would-be criminals.

Love made him hit hard, hold tight, listen without interrupting. The job he had once done from other motivations—misguided patriotism, a sense of duty, perhaps—he now did for a much more compelling reason. He did it because he cared for every one of the faces.

It wasn't about atonement. Reese knew he could never make up for the things he had done in another life. They were finished, their damage complete. But that didn't mean he couldn't save the others from hurting or being hurt. In the end, it was the same, whether you were the one or the other. He knew all about that; he'd been in front of the gun and behind it. The damage wasn't all that different.

* * *

><p>Angela Guitierrez watched her savior walk away, past the groups of lawyers and cops and out the door of the courthouse, a hero with the gentlest eyes she'd ever seen.<p>

Angela didn't think about angels much, but when she did, she thought of the picture in her grandmother's Bible of a muscular, winged man keeping Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden. An avenging angel with an angry face and cold, piercing eyes. She had never imagined that angels could be kind, and she hadn't known that a man with a fist could also be a man with a heart.

Not until she met John Reese.

Angela didn't realize that to evildoers, John was every bit as scary as the avenging angel from her childhood. She only saw the tenderness in his eyes when he looked at her and heard the kindness in his voice when he spoke her name.

She stood still as he walked away, remembering the protective warmth of his arms around her and smiling at the knowledge that once, for a short time, an angel had loved her.


	2. The Knight

When Harold Finch was a boy, his favorite thing in the world was to crawl up into his grandfather's lap and read the _Morte d'Arthur_, the tales of the Round Table. While he was reading, or being read to, it didn't matter that he was smaller than the other kids his age or that he wore glasses and wasn't very good at sports. He could escape then, becoming part of the stories until he could feel a sword in his hand and hear the chaotic sounds of battle.

"Harold," said his grandfather, just before one of his wet goodnight kisses on his grandson's wide forehead, "don't worry, you'll be a knight some day." The little boy had cherished the words, hugging them to himself like a birthday present.

After that, Harold forgot. High school and college came and went, and he was ever the paranoid geek. He didn't mind, not too much. He got used to the rhythm of his research, his few friends, his lack of romantic attachments. He was a genius with a small, predictable world.

Then came September 11th and Nathan and a project so secret they hardly dared to even talk about it between themselves at first. Harold applied all he knew and all he could learn to invent something that had never existed before, and when his mind was nearly spent with the effort, it was finished. The Machine.

He had no delusions of grandeur. He had done what was asked of him and produced what was required. He knew it was priceless, but it meant nothing to him on a personal level.

Until he realized what it could really do.

The day he saved the first one, the first face behind the Number, Harold knew. He didn't have a sword or a white steed or a suit of armor. He had a computer and a brilliant mind and a burning desire for justice.

He had become a knight.


	3. The Angel's Guardian

"Who's looking after you these days?"

"Someone new."

John didn't always see it. He didn't want to see it. When he first wondered the streets, finally free of his handlers and the nightmarish job that would never cease haunting him, he thought liberation meant aloneness. He touched no one, and he sought no one's touch. The only human contact he had was when he got into fights—fights to protect the girl who's boyfriend had had a few too many drinks and decided to use her as a punching bag, to get the stolen purse back for the terrified little lady with white hair, to defend himself when someone found him a little too far outside the norm and decided to attack. Fights were easy.

He didn't notice when it took him over, the dark listlessness that ate up every ounce of feeling he possessed. It didn't happen all at once, but by the time he understood what had happened, he was completely under its spell. He no longer cared. The fight on the Subway was little more than an exercise, a practice session to test his reflexes. He could have taken on ten more; they were untrained and overconfident.

Later on, he would remember that fight with near-awe, seeing it in his mind's eye as the turning point, the thing on which everything else hinged. The fight had brought him to Harold.

They began as employer and employee, the first step. It was a good step; it forced him into purpose and intentionality, like a hand reaching into the darkness and pulling him back toward life.

It wasn't until Harold practically carried him to safety, not caring about the blood staining his precious suit, until he woke up and realized what Harold had done to keep him alive—it wasn't until then that he saw what liberation truly meant.

True freedom was having someone to take care of him and choosing to care in return.


	4. Broken Things

When Harold looked at John Reese, he remembered the day his brothers had decided to toss him into the deep end of a swimming pool just to see what would happen. Sometimes, Reese had the look of a man who'd been tossed into the deep end of life and forced to figure it out without a life preserver.

Harold didn't consider how far he would go to protect John, how much the man was worth to him. Keeping him safe was as natural to Harold as breathing air, the way he had never given a second thought to rescuing wounded animals or befriending his least popular classmates. He had an instinct for wounded things.

The Machine had shown Harold that he needed someone else, someone with the knowledge and abilities he lacked. But he had never been able to bear taking without giving something in return. Reese was qualified beyond Harold's wildest dreams, and he was as damaged as he was gifted. Harold didn't mind.

He was the sort of man who liked to take care of broken things. He always had been.


	5. Big Brother

In George Orwell's _1984_, Big Brother is the face of the government, a government that watches its citizens' every move and punishes them for every speck of individuality, including their thoughts.

She knew it was illogical, but for Joss Carter, Big Brother always wore the face of her oldest brother, Trent. Joss had five brothers: Two half, two full, one step. All older.

One time, during basic training, Joss's best friend, a petite blond named Alicia, had asked her about her family and then stared at her, wide-eyed, before exclaiming, "You're so lucky! I'm an only child. I always wanted a big brother."

"Not this kind," was all Joss had replied, quickly pushing the memory of Trent's fists and her other brothers' cruel taunting out of her mind. Until then, she'd never stopped to think about the fact that "big brother" meant something different to people like Alicia, something warm and safe. Someone on your side.

_Warm _and _safe _were the furthest words from Joss's mind the day she met John Reese, a bum with philosophical eyes and a violent streak. Turned out he was a lot more than that. In a matter of months, he went from enemy number one to unsettling ally and, finally, to something else entirely. The funny thing about Reese was that he was as much like Orwell's Big Brother as anything else, a man who knew things he shouldn't know and used power in ways no judge would ever condone. But he was different, too.

Joss started to realize it the night she found him standing over her after he'd saved her life. She was used to people doing the things they did for a personal angle, but there was no angle for John Reese. Saving her only set him up for more danger and annoyance. As the days went by, she understood it less and less. She had no system to process data that said someone was _selfless_, especially not a man.

The longer she knew John, the stranger it got, so she tried on different hypotheses. Maybe he did it for kicks, enjoyed the violence. No, he was a protector. He never hurt people for fun. Maybe it was the power he liked. No, he was happy to recede into the background and let his little partner take over if need be. Control meant very little to him beyond the objective of the moment. He was no robot, either, devoid of feeling. His eyes held far too much compassion for that.

Joss wasn't stupid. She knew that once she'd looked at the evidence and ruled out the other possibilities, she had to believe what was left. Funny how strongly her mind tried to reject the truth—for whatever it was worth, John Reese _cared_, and he was on her side.

Something like a big brother, John Reese. Not the kind she had; the kind she needed.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Inspired by a POI tv spot in which Jim Caviezel called Reese Det. Carter's big brother. **


	6. A Man Like That

When she was seventeen, Joss Carter had a crush on her history teacher. All the other kids called Mr. Sykes a dweeb and a geek, an impossibly out-of-touch authority figure who wore tiny glasses and three-piece suits and cared more about the Trojans than MTV.

But they didn't understand. They didn't know that Mr. Sykes stayed late every Friday to tutor Joss and make sure she didn't drop out of school like all of her brothers before her. They didn't realize that every other teacher saw Joss as a gender or a color or one more in a long line of troublemakers, but Mr. Sykes saw her as a human being. They weren't around the day he put a career aptitude test in her hand.

"Jocelyn," he said, after painstakingly scoring each question by hand, "this test says you'd make a wonderful police officer. I think you should consider it." That moment, Joss Carter found a purpose.

After a while, Joss fell out of love with Mr. Sykes and filed her crush away with the many that had punctuated her teenage years, but she never forgot him. That's why she found John Reese's partner uncanny.

Everything in her brain told her that she ought to distrust the voice on the other end of the phone, the little man who knew even more than the vigilante she'd spent months trying to catch. She'd been a beat cop, a military interrogator, and now a homicide detective, and nothing about any of those jobs made a person likely to trust easily, especially not someone who clearly considered himself above the law, or, if not above it, at least outside it. She could understand Reese; they had death and war in common. His friend was an enigma.

He was an enigma that looked just like Mr. Sykes. He had the same taste in clothes, the same kind of glasses, the same way of looking at a person with absolute respect.

The thing was, Joss hadn't left prejudice behind with graduation. The world, she'd found, was full of people ready to judge her on the basis of her skin or her clothes or her gender or the fact that she had a son and no husband. The world had very few people like Mr. Sykes in it.

But something in Joss, something instinctive, told her that John Reese's partner was one of those people. For all of his forbidden knowledge and mysterious power, he was just a kind man, a man like her high school history teacher. A man like that could be trusted.


	7. The Root Mind

He was clever, that little man. He was so smart he could almost see through her, but not quite. She liked him. She liked the other one, too, the tall, dark one with the lightning-quick reflexes.

Lots of fun, those two. She hadn't had so much fun since the bomb in the science building at college. Nobody knew about that. Nobody except Tom, and he was dead. He hadn't known that if you got involved with her it meant you wouldn't last long. Not like he hadn't enjoyed things while they lasted. She'd seen to that.

She liked having an audience. Better if it was an intelligent audience, someone who could truly understand the full scope of all she could achieve. That's what Harold was. If only—if only she could get him on her side. She would let him live. They could be something together, something amazing. People—stupid, ordinary people—didn't realize people like them existed. That was the fun part. But it got tiring to be brilliant without anyone knowing. Tiring and normal and pedestrian.

She could work John. He was ordinary that way, almost to the point that he'd disappointed her. But Harold wouldn't have an ordinary partner. That's what had kept her looking for more. She realized after a long while that he was extraordinary in a different way, a physical way. He was like a panther. She had to fight her instinctual fear. She had never been able to quite comprehend people who were visceral like that, visceral and sensory and alert. Her world was knowledge and theory and technology. She hated the opposite because she couldn't master it. But she didn't hate John. It had been so long since she'd had a real challenge that leaving him alive for a while was worth it.

But why wouldn't they turn? Why, once they saw her power and her intelligence and all she was able to do, wouldn't they join her? Plenty of people had tried. Plenty of sad-sack, normal, unintelligent people had risked their lives (and usually lost them) for a chance to be part of Root's inner circle.

Harold, though, with his three-piece suits and quiet confidence, wouldn't give it a moment's thought, and John, well, he thought he was full of darkness, but the light in him almost blinded her with its virtuous intensity. They wouldn't turn. They wouldn't yield. They wouldn't give up their sad, passionate love affair with morality.

No more, Root thought, they weren't fun any more.


	8. Bear the Brave

There is a Tall One, and there is a Short One. The Tall One smells of gunpowder and sometimes blood. The Short One smells of tea leaves and the plastic the humans use in computers.

My name is Bear. I am a dog, the animal that is not a bear. But I do not mind, because a bear is a nice animal to be, and it means the Tall One thinks I am strong and brave.

I do not think I am strong and brave, or I would not have done the things the Angry One made me do before. The Tall One says we are the same. Sometimes, late at night, he tells me what the Powerful Ones made him do, and he does not seem any prouder of them than I am of the things I used to do.

The Tall One is very nice. The People do not know that he buys me my favorite foods to eat and gives me a bath every three days because I like baths. Most dogs do not like baths, but the Angry One never washed me, so I like them very much now. The Tall One uses a special brush that is very soft and makes my fur feel nice, and he lets me lie beside him in bed and put my nose on his pillow.

I did not think the Short One liked me. He did not want to touch my ball, and he did not scratch behind my ears the way the Tall One does. I did not mind because he did not hurt me, so I knew he was nice.

But the Short One likes me now. He does not run, and I do not put my head on his lap to watch television. Instead, he gives me a Special Look, and I know that he is happy that I am lying next to his feet. He asks me questions and then answers them himself, but he likes knowing that I am listening. Sometimes, he gives me half of his steak when he is not hungry. I love the Short One as much as the Tall One, though I show it differently.

The Tall One says I am a Good Dog, and I say that he is a Good Man, though he cannot understand me.


	9. A Matter of Time

_Stone Walls do not a Prison make,_

_Nor Iron bars a Cage;_

_Minds innocent and quiet take_

_That for an Hermitage._

_If I have freedom in my Love,_

_And in my soul am free,_

_Angels alone that soar above,_

_Enjoy such Liberty._

Richard Lovelace, he was a great poet. He knew all the tricks. I used to like the Cavalier Poets, when I was in school. It's been a long time now. I saw the poetry in binary, and I never looked back.

Sing-song, sing-song. I quote poetry to Harold. He likes it. It's part of his programming, you might say. He likes old things. It's funny, that. He likes things so new no one has ever seen or heard of them, things like the Machine, but he also likes old things.

He says I read well, in that wry voice he uses whenever he compliments me. He thinks I'm pretty; I think he's adorable. You might say it's cat and mouse, except that the mouse has managed to put the cat in a Faraday Cage.

It's funny, so funny, to be surrounded by so much technology and be unable to reach or touch it. He's a good jailer, that Finch. I like Reese; he's scared of me. I know better than to try to seduce him. He doesn't go in for that any more, he says. They all go in for it sometimes, but I'm not his type.

I miss Her. I know She misses me. Harold is a silly, precious little fool to keep us apart. He's pitiful in his sheer determination to move against the inevitable tide. I bide my time and read his books. He has thousands, and he fills my prison with ones he thinks I'll enjoy.

He has good taste, the little bird of a man. I would marry him if I didn't love his Machine more. I don't mind jail; billionaires have fantastic dinners.

It's only a matter of time. I wonder if Harold will be collateral.


	10. Words

John hadn't ever been the one with the words. He had the fists and the intent, but never the eloquence. It was supposed to be Harold telling him his mission, trying to get him back on the path when his resolve faltered. It wasn't supposed to be him, on a bench, trying to figure out what to say to make Harold understand that his mission wasn't over.

Harold was the true believer; he was the one who carried out the plans. But now there was a hollowness in the small man's eyes, and John realized just how much had changed, for the fire that had once burned in Finch now burned in him.

Then again, maybe it wasn't about the words. He hadn't come back because of Harold's speeches, as well-crafted as they were. He'd come back because out of everyone in the world, Harold Finch had offered him friendship, and he'd learned the value of what that meant.

Friendship wasn't about words. It was about the big things, like forgiveness, and the small things, like a dog leash. Mostly, it was about just being there.

John Reese had no idea what to say to bring Harold Finch's purpose back to life. All he knew was that he wasn't going anywhere.


	11. Survival

Harold wants to quit, but John Reese is heaven-bent on continuing. It's a strange reversal, to be the one trying to give up. He's not used to it. He's always been the one with the plans; John has carried them out.

He feels a moment of revulsion as he walks to the meeting place. How has he managed to create a man with so much passion he won't even stop when it's all over? He tells himself he never intended to do that, but it's a lie. The moment he'd met John Reese, he'd wanted to fill those empty eyes up with real purpose.

But you can't create a John Reese, not really. He knows it wasn't the speeches or the missions. Somewhere along the line, Reese had decided who he was, decided to care. Harold couldn't feel badly about that any more than he could take credit for it. He had offered friendship, and it had been enough, but the fearsome angel with the dark eyes was not of his making.

It's not hubris that makes him feel responsible. It's love. John has become a brother, just at the moment when all Harold wants is to survive.


End file.
